| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| webmanus |
Posted - 04 Aug 2005 : 22:01:33
Hi folks!
After reading about the griffon-riders of Waterdeep (City of Splendors: Waterdeep, 2005) (CoSW), I have been looking at some figures. I wanted to know what the Speed of a griffon, that must carry a rider and equipment, would be. And, I wanted to know, how many griffon-riders are on duty.
Well, I came to the conclusion that the griffon's load is light and that there are around eight griffon-riders on duty, that is, two griffon-rider patrols.
Now, your party, that may be heading to Waterdeep for the first time, might instead of meeting the city guard in the countryside, meet a patrol of four griffon-riders up to 32 miles (one half days flight) from the city. Pretty cool ...
Please note that the responsabilities if the Griffon Cavalry is the defence of Mount Waterdeep and the city below ... but, why not send a patrol a bit away from the city. Maybe, even farther than 32 miles. Ten hours flight takes a patrol 80 miles away! They will not reach Daggerford, but Alphail Village and Goldenfields. I find it "pretty cool".
Now, if it is a stupid idea or not, I do not know ... I mean, dragons could be out there ...
Here are my figures ...
Griffon-Rider
The Griffon-Rider's Equipment
Equipment Weight
+1 banded mail 35
masterwork light steel shield 6
lance of burning blackfire 5
masterwork longsword 4
+1 composite shortbow 2
quiver with 20 arrows 3
55
Weight carried by the Griffon
Object Weight
Griffon-rider 175
Griffon-rider's equipment 55
Saddle, exotic, military 40
270
Griffon's Carrying Capacity
Load lb.
Light 0 - 300
Medium 301 - 600
Heavy 601 - 900
Griffon's Movement
Speed 80 ft. (average)
One hour 8 miles
One day 64 miles
And, there are 100 griffon-riders, and in a tenday, they work 20 hours of 240 hours (tenday in hour, 10 x 24). Thus, 100 x 20 / 240 members of the Griffon Cavalty could be on duty at any given time.
Please note that I do only have D&D 3.0, and I have not looked up any other books than PHB and MM, besides CoSW.
Best regards,
webmanus |
| 9 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 05 Aug 2005 : 22:50:30
quote:
Originally posted by webmanus
Night flying ... that is truth ... did not think about that 
Hmmm, a mercenary leader (2nd-level warrior, DMG 3.0, page 149) earns 6 sp per day, that is, 18 gp per month. Why did Eric L Boyd give members of the City Watch only 5 gp per month? Maybe, it is better to have Ed Greenwood as DM ... if the salaries are high, then the piles of coins in treasures might also be high 
Well you can ask Eric in his thread, it might have been an error as well. Though there certainly over the editions different understandings of what is a fair pay. Of course there is pay with benefits, free food and shelter as oposed to having to buy food and pay rent and taxes. BD&D envisioned support (like smiths and armorers provided at the realms expense) that was an indirect cost as oposed to direct pay.quote:
Hmmm, flying with cookies to the Dalelands, or teleporting. Yes, teleporting would be more efficient. And, yes, the stranger a situation is, the more work the DM needs to put down to justify it. I mean, four griffon-riders should not arrive with a box of cookies at Elminster's tower in Shadowdale. If that happnes, then the DM would need to explain a lot to the players. I like cookies, though  {/quote]
Hey if you are important enough or willing to pay enough you will get cookies whenever you want. There can be reasons, perhaps going to a dead magic area for example. Still considering how small Waterdeep airforce is, this would be unlikely.[quote]
OK, duke Kentinal, now I understand ... no need to search though my Realms books for the Duke's Airforce ...
Well I did have some hope of putting together something good enough to be published it currently appears the Kentinal realm will not become Realms lore in the near or far future. Though I would not be adverse to recieving an offer *wink* |
| webmanus |
Posted - 05 Aug 2005 : 22:27:52
Night flying ... that is truth ... did not think about that
Hmmm, a mercenary leader (2nd-level warrior, DMG 3.0, page 149) earns 6 sp per day, that is, 18 gp per month. Why did Eric L Boyd give members of the City Watch only 5 gp per month? Maybe, it is better to have Ed Greenwood as DM ... if the salaries are high, then the piles of coins in treasures might also be high
Hmmm, flying with cookies to the Dalelands, or teleporting. Yes, teleporting would be more efficient. And, yes, the stranger a situation is, the more work the DM needs to put down to justify it. I mean, four griffon-riders should not arrive with a box of cookies at Elminster's tower in Shadowdale. If that happnes, then the DM would need to explain a lot to the players. I like cookies, though
OK, duke Kentinal, now I understand ... no need to search though my Realms books for the Duke's Airforce ... |
| ode904 |
Posted - 05 Aug 2005 : 22:23:37
*out of expected answers*
Oh, i haven't ever heard of those
Always nice to learn new lore |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 05 Aug 2005 : 11:32:26
quote:
Originally posted by webmanus
Hi,
I just divided the day into three shifts, first of eight hours, and did then extend each shift with two hours. I did not bother with start and end time, only length, and making the shifts to overlape. Why three shifts, well, I read it in the article "The City Watch of Waterdeep, Part Two", see link below:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rl/20050727a
However, the griffon-riders could have different shifts and schedules. The above is written for the City Watch.
I suspect the griffon riders would not be doing night flying as a normal patrol. Can not see much when it is dark and there is a small number of them. I would think that there might be one shift with varing start times to cover a little more then the daylight period. Perhaps a few patrols would be held during the night just strikes me as unlikely. Not all 100 should be flying a patrol each day, there should be rest days for both beast and rider and a patrol or two should be held in reserve. Perhaps under normal conditions 80 would fly each day, in time of war or other emergentcy all would be flying as needed.
quote:
By the way, that salary in the article above is different from the one stated in the book (City of Splendors: Waterdeep (COSW) ). If a member of the city watch receives 5 sp per day, then he will earn 15 gp in a month. COSW states that the salary is 5 gp per month. Furthermore, city watch members earn an additional of 4 sp per patrol ...
The 5 gp per month is too low a pay, unskilled workers earn 3 gp per month. Use the 15 gp as base pay and the 4 sp per patrol served as a better quideline. quote:
Patrol, well, according to COSW, page 33, a griffon-rider patrol consists of four griffon-riders. Now maybe, patrol is just a patrol, or it is maybe the word they selected forr the unit size. Of course, one griffon-rider could be sent out of the city, as well as two, four, eight, and so on. Once again, I am only writing of an exception, just to make your players happy. It is up to the DM to think about the reasons of meeting a griffon-rider patrol 32 miles (4 hours flight), 64 miles (8 hours flight), or even 80 miles (pushing a bit hard, are those fellows) from Waterdeep.
The patrol would equal the unit size. There certainly is no reason that one (or any number) could be sent on a special mission away from the city. As far as the 32 mile range, I would expect that normal patrols would (at least some of them) fly that far from the city to check for posible armies or other dangers nearing the city. Some indeed might be sent a full days flight out as well to see what is about on the lands, camp the night in the wilds and return to city the next day. Also of course special missions could be sent out that might be gone weeks or even months. Just with the small numbers I consider such long range missions to be rare. It would be more likely some kind of magical transport wold be used for longer range travel. That wizards would scry the outer lands as oposed to sending griffons.quote:
The Duke's airforce ... I am confused ... I do not recognice it. Sorry. Were can I read about them?
Most of Duke Kentinal's airforce is on my hard drive, my home page (geocities) makes some mention of the airforce. The reason I referred to this airforce is because of the way I have used it. The airforce is mostly defensive in nature, except when an army is sent out to attack another country. Then they provide air cover for troops and scounting. Some are used to relay messages back and forth to the commander of the army and/or watch over resupply wagons. |
| webmanus |
Posted - 05 Aug 2005 : 07:36:45
Hi,
I just divided the day into three shifts, first of eight hours, and did then extend each shift with two hours. I did not bother with start and end time, only length, and making the shifts to overlape. Why three shifts, well, I read it in the article "The City Watch of Waterdeep, Part Two", see link below:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rl/20050727a
However, the griffon-riders could have different shifts and schedules. The above is written for the City Watch.
By the way, that salary in the article above is different from the one stated in the book (City of Splendors: Waterdeep (COSW) ). If a member of the city watch receives 5 sp per day, then he will earn 15 gp in a month. COSW states that the salary is 5 gp per month. Furthermore, city watch members earn an additional of 4 sp per patrol ...
Patrol, well, according to COSW, page 33, a griffon-rider patrol consists of four griffon-riders. Now maybe, patrol is just a patrol, or it is maybe the word they selected forr the unit size. Of course, one griffon-rider could be sent out of the city, as well as two, four, eight, and so on. Once again, I am only writing of an exception, just to make your players happy. It is up to the DM to think about the reasons of meeting a griffon-rider patrol 32 miles (4 hours flight), 64 miles (8 hours flight), or even 80 miles (pushing a bit hard, are those fellows) from Waterdeep.
The Duke's airforce ... I am confused ... I do not recognice it. Sorry. Were can I read about them? |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 05 Aug 2005 : 01:02:10
Hi webmanus,
The shift times are wrong, a troop would be expected to work at lease 5 (and mor like 10) days per day.
A special purpose unit (it would no longer be a patrol) certainly could fly out of Waterdeep controled lands. 80 miles travel a day certainly possible, with vectoring and dive might even achiece a greater overland travel. Rise slowly then dive at double speed could increase range. These though would be special missions.
The Duke has an Airforce that contains 1,011 humans (OK a few might be other races) and maintains a force of rocs and petrosaurus (I refer to them as jets and planes in my pitiful webpage). The normal operational area for these about 900 flyiers is restricted to the family realm and Lake Valley (a mining and airforce breeding holding). 10 rocs and 150 petrosaurus are asigned to border control at all times. Much of the airforce is maintained at Lake Valley. The only times that either the fast or slow travevals go beyound these areas are as a message service to allies or in support of mounted and/or foot troops offering aid to another nation (for a price) or to protect supply trains for such troops. These is not to say either flyer or rider is not ready or equipted to do combat with either air or ground forces.
The assests would be held close to home as to standard ptrols and almost certainly Waterdeeps pitiful few would also be held close to home.
This of course does not prevent a patrol of 4 flying to the Dales to deliver a message. Just that griffon riders would rarely be seen outside of return to home same day. |
| webmanus |
Posted - 04 Aug 2005 : 23:56:59
Hi Kentinal,
Actually, I had no question this time ... just wanted to comment the griffon-riders.
Some comments, to your comments:
1. The sample griffon-rider is armed with a +1 composite shortbow, see page 33.
2. Members of the Griffon Cavalry are required to serve an average of 20 hours per tenday, see page 33.
Imagine that each day is divided in three overlaping shifts of 10 hours length:
23:00 -- 09:00 Shift 1
07:00 -- 17:00 Shift 2
15:00 -- 01:00 Shift 3
Then, one member of the Griffon Cavalry could serve during the tenday's 1st shift day 1 and day 2. And, that would make 20 hours in a tenday. To have all three shifts manned, you would need three members. And, to cover the whole tenday, you would need five times as many members, that is, 15. Now you have 15 griffon-riders to cover a whole tenday. But, each shift should have at least a patrol of four. Then, you need 60 members. And, to have two patrols per shift during a tenday, you need 120 members. Thus, the Griffon Cavalry is in need of 20 more members. And yes, at 08:00, there would be four patrols ... Of cource, the shifts could be only 8 hours long and so on. But, on average, calculations gives two patrols during a shift.
Now, I may have completly missunderstod the requirements entry ... Personally, I think that 20 hours/tenday is too low.
About fliyng beyond Waterdeep city. I just wanted to play with the idea that a patrol, for some reason, is out of the city, in a long range mission. This would be an exception. And, could be used as an introduction, or first encounter, with the city of Waterdeep. It is up to the DM to invent the reasons behind such an encounter. I just did not know how far a griffon could fly, and, I did think on the problem with load. So, after checking weights/load and speed, I came to the figure of 8 miles/hour. This figure gives a lot of possibilities ... up to the DM to do something about it ...
Best regards,
webmanus |
| Crennen FaerieBane |
Posted - 04 Aug 2005 : 23:20:28
Well, it's a great idea, but I don't think Waterdeep would spread one of its precious resources too thin. They need to keep the GRs close as to have them on hand in case anything unusual pops up, like a Dragon or a myriad of other flying meanies. It's just not tactically sound to send out some of your aerial calvary if you may take a heavy hit while doing so.
C-Fb |
| Kentinal |
Posted - 04 Aug 2005 : 23:19:19
Per SRD 3.5 we are given this "Carrying Capacity
A light load for a griffon is up to 300 pounds; a medium load, 301-600 pounds; and a heavy load, 601-900 pounds. "
So that has not changed. The fly speed is not unchanged either.
I guess yor question is more about how the riders should be equiped and how many are on active duty.
Crossbows make sense, the platform is not stable so would be an increased miss chance to hit a target (a bow would be harder).
With 100 at least 1/3 would be on duty at all times able to fly. Lowlight vision works a little for the mounts, it however does not work well for human riders. Even then lowlight is short range. There should not be much night flying at all, except in times of repelling attacks from flyers.
Range, 80 miles travel one way is unlikely at all unless sure of going into friendly teriotory. The partrol ranges as a matter of course should be more like 30 from last sucured friendly holding. In this case a Waterdeep controled holding. This for two reasons. As the radius is greater the area to be patroled increases far greater. The second of course would be ability to retreat to a secured location. A Waterdeep keep for example. |
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